Cage (poetic conceit... right?)

I used to be wild, happy and free,
until someone decided to put a cage around me.
I fought and I struggled but their grasp was so strong,
they made me believe what I was was all wrong.
Now I watch from my cage at the people passing by,
and the birds that sing as they soar through the sky.
I’ll break free from my cage, I’ll try and I’ll try
I'll break from the cage, because the cage is a lie.

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This is actually a really good poem. I totally feel you on this. Except I never knew what its like to be free from the cage. My cage slowly disappears as I get older, but its never truly gone. I hope its a lie.

I used to be wild, happy and free,
until someone decided to put a cage around me.
I fought and I struggled but their grasp was so strong,
they made me believe what I was was all wrong.
Now I watch from my cage at the people passing by,
and the birds that sing as they soar through the sky.
I’ll break free from my cage, I’ll try and I’ll try
I'll break from the cage, because the cage is a lie.

Hi Angie!

Firstly let me thank you for your work, I really enjoyed it and I agree you have a unique voice. I had a teacher in school who was a published poetry writer, and she would constantly give me low B's. One day I asked her why that was. She told me "you understand the mechanics of a poem, but you only have the skeleton". She later went on to say that I was simply handing the reader my feelings on the paper.

A poem is like a good seduction. You can't just get to the girl's door and immediately ask to be invited into her bed. You have to take her out, seduce her, ensnare her, then make your move. Same with your poem. You are basically "telling" us you are trapped in what I assume to be an emotional cage. What you should be doing is "showing".

An extended metaphor or poetic conceit basically takes an item and gives it entirely different properties like HoLei said in her original post. John Dunne spends the entire poem describing the ways a flea is like a marriage bed in order to achieve an end (to get the girl in bed). You don't show me an end in your story other than "sharing your feelings" which is great, but then you really have to sell it to me.

I would never presume to tell you how to rewrite, I would only ask these questions as a reader. How did your cage look? How did it feel, smell, taste? And how do those things further the image of your emotional stagnation.

Hope some of this makes sense, and I didn't ramble too much!
Thanks for the work!